Instead of focusing on all the bad things like, “Oh my gosh, I hate my thighs,” I say let’s look at the hair and say, “Oh wow, I’m having such a great hair day.” Or “Oh wow, my eyes are so clear today…I really like my lips….” And then eventually your mind will start to change and think of the positive things when you look in the mirror instead of focusing on the negative. It definitely takes time—it’s a habit—but just like anything else, over time, you can change the way your mind works.

and I’m gonna put some of her ideas into action… especially when it comes to cravings which I’m having problems with as when I eat chocolate my anorexia has started kicking in and telling me I’m going to get fat, so I’m taking Renn’s advice 🙂

Unfortunately the Healthy Body Image Quiz doesn’t work any more but this article What No One Ever Tells You About Losing Weight was really useful when it comes to excersise and food. Although I’m not loosing weight, it still has useful tips like not punishing yourself if you eat badly, not analyzing everything that goes in your mouth and celebrating all your successes in fitness, not just when you get to your goal 🙂

Finally, a nice way to end the article bit of this group of posts is this: 16 Ways I Learned to Love My Body where 16 different bloggers/journalists give their tips on how to love your body…

Like this:

I realized my biggest cause of my self esteem is because I’m still subconsciously idolizing mannequins which aren’t shaped like real people, they’re based on real people…but should come with a health warning to let you know you’re not supposed to look like this…as I’ve spent years thinking my hips, thighs and stomach were too big, my boobs were too small, my hair wasn’t glossy enough, my posture wasn’t right and my legs weren’t long enough.

Warning: I'm faker than Katie Price

So with encouragement from my partner we devised a plan:

New idols

I have to complement myself on one physical aspect of mine a day

I have to praise myself when I do things good/right and tell my partner 10 things I praised myself for

To be more committed to exercise…

So I went in search of a body to idolize…I don’t really like celeb culture and they all screw up at some point so that’s a no no…modelling is a minefield…so I Googled “Good bodies” and after some searching I found this:

Ooh look…real women…real bodies…real proportions…so far so good. This then led me a section of Glamour Magazine’s website where they are celebrating real women’s bodies and super models who aren’t super thin. The first thing I found was a section from the magazine’s editor: On the C.L.: Are You Ready to Start a Body Image Revolution? Oh, Wait–You Already Did! saying how after the amazing responses they got back from Lizzie Miller being included in one issue of Glamour Magazine they will try and put a bigger variation of body sizes in the magazine…so more normal women. The article about the picture was called Supermodels Who Aren’t Superthin: Meet the Women Who Proudly Bared it All I took the images and women’s stories from here to make my own Inspiration Posters which I’m gonna stick by my mirror, so whenever I look in the mirror and feel dissatisfied I can look at them and feel better:

Feel Free to use if you want 🙂 I then read These Bodies are Beautiful at Every Size which is about how the people’s desire for magazines is changing, people don’t want waif thin models, they want real beauties, British Vogue editor Alexander Shulman personally wrote to big fashion brands asking them to provide bigger sample clothes at fashion shoots, rather than clothes for size 0-4, give them bigger sizes so they can use bigger models and models don’t have to try and fit the clothes rather than vice-versa, it also outlines Glamour Magazine’s new revised proposal which includes frequently larger models. The image that started this all off was this:

The majority of replies that flooded the magazine were supporting her, saying how beautiful and inspirational she was…but some people said she was promoting obesity…SHE’S A SIZE 12!!!! HOW IS SHE IN ANYWAY OBESE?? OBESE!!!!!